Indigo: Abraham, Emotion Vol. 3: Chapter Thirteen: "Bridges, the Crossing"

 

Chapter Thirteen: Bridges, the Crossing

 

            Alex couldn’t believe that it was Carolyne whom she was looking at.  They locked eyes, and Alex didn’t see the eyes of the woman she had given herself to.  At some point, a bloodied monster with a soul as black as hell had crawled into Carlyne’s skin and emptied her out.  Now, looking into Carolyne’s eyes, all Alex saw was murder.

            Using the railing to brace herself, Alex stayed up.  Her legs were weak; her head rang.  Breathes came in wheezing pants.  From time-to-time her vision blurred, but she wasn’t sure what caused that.  Movement hurt, and she coughed hard until she found blood in her palms, but she stood still, and she glared across at Carolyne, who returned her gaze with the hungry look of a rabid lioness. Carolyne stepped over Goliath now, waving her blade in front of her in play.

            “He was listening,” Alex said, her voice rough and raw.  She tried to stand on her own but couldn’t and immediately returned to the railing for support.

            Carolyne shrugged.  “I’m sure he was, but I don’t care.  I wanted to kill him, so I did.”

            “Wanted to?”  Alex shouted and then fell into a coughing fit.  She held her chest and swallowed something thick.

            “Yes,” Carolyne said, coming to a stop a few feet away.  “And he is only the first on a long list.”  She trained her Voice on Alex again.  “You. Are. Next.”

            “Why?”  Alex asked, but she could see the demon in Carolyne’s eyes.  It was in need of blood and had sacrifices in mind.  Alex would have to fight Carolyne again, and this time she would have to win.  She swallowed her pain and stood on her own.

            Carolyne saw Alex’s resolve and laughed.  Pacing a small circle, she waved her blade around her like a child at play.  She was small and fast, but Alex had size on her.  Alex knew this, and she watched Carolyne carefully, looking for an opening.  Even with size as an advantage, Alex wasn’t sure she could win.  Carolyne had two other important advantages—Alex was exhausted, and Alex also wasn’t a murderer.  The fight with Goliath was a fight to live and to bring her friends home.  To beat Carolyne, Alex would have to kill.

            Alex’s legs quaked, but she held.  She stared across at Carolyne, ignoring her small encroaching form and the threat of her blade.  “I asked you a question, Carolyne.  Why? Why do you want to kill me?”

            Carolyne stopped.  She stared Alex in the eyes and looked dead, hollow, entirely without human compassion or empathy.  Behind her hate, behind the monster inside of her, there was nothing at all.  “You’re holding me back,” she said.  “Restraining me, keeping me from my true potential, and I can’t stand it anymore.  I am meant to be something, to grow and blossom into something powerful, beautiful, something so much more than what I was stuck in Sadieville.  Something so much more than what I am now, but you’ve been keeping me from it.  Memories of you…”  A scowl distorted her face and sharpened her features.  She looked hideous, wicked, and violent.  The beast bared its fangs.  “I won’t allow it!  I won’t let anyone hold me back anymore!  I don’t care if it’s a traitorous fuck like him!”  She stabbed absently at the corpse behind her.  “Or if it’s you.  I will remove all obstacles.”

            Alex’s voice caught.  She whispered Carolyne’s name.

            “Enough!  I refuse to waste any more time talking to a cadaver.”

            They met.  Carolyne closed distance with a single, graceful lunge, floating across the bridge with her blade leading.  Alex’s reaction was clumsy.  She brought her arm up just in time to parry, sparks flying as their Voices collide.  Carolyne’s rapier slid across the surface of Alex’s blade and severed the railing beside them.

            Carolyne spun and thrust behind her.  Alex blocked but hadn’t the footing to hold.  She was knocked backward and had to seize the railing to keep herself standing.  Another thrust followed, this one made from the front and meant for Alex’s head.  Alex sidestepped but could hear the air whistle as the rapier clipped her dark hair.

            Alex landed face first on the ground, her legs giving for a few crucial seconds.  She gathered her breath and got to her knees, pushing up from there and using the momentum to take a wide, aimless swing for Carolyne’s torso.  Carolyne ducked under and lunged, using her legs to put all the force of her tiny frame behind the attack.  A cold prick of steel teased Alex’s side and released a flood of pain through her.  Blood followed, spilling down her waist.

            She screamed and, feeling weak, staggered away.  A thin, red trail of ribbon followed her movements and gathered at her feet.  She sweated and slipped, catching herself just before hitting the ground.  Whatever was hurt, it made it hard for her breathe.

            Carolyne laughed while following Alex closely.  Her movements were slow and coy; her eyes were full of hate.  She was small, much smaller than Alex, but in that moment,  she seemed far more dangerous.  She was a vision of feral, wolf-like hunger made real.  Smirking, she brought her blade up and lunged.  They met, Alex was barely able to block and was left reeling.  She clung tightly to the railing beside her to remain standing and followed Carolyne’s movements with her eyes.

            “You’re weak, Alexandra, too weak!”  Carolyne swung, quick and precise, and barely missed the fleeing Alex.  The pillar where Alex had been clinging was sliced clean in two.  It slid out of place and fell into the infinite darkness below.

            Alex’s legs gave out.  She caught herself by her arm as she came to a halt on the cold tiles of the bridge.  She felt heavy, and it was hard to breathe.  Each exhale was a rasp, and every inhale burned.  She thought about Abraham, and she thought about Shana, but none of it could bring her back to her feet.

            She imagined Shana in front of her, a pool of blood surrounding her, shaped like a star beneath her pale body.  Organs gleaming, exposed from her stomach, her face soft, white, and tranquil, and she saw Abraham beside her, bloodless, headless.  A short distance away she saw a skull wrapped in black hair and rotting pale flesh.  It stared at her with glossy, black marbles.  Alex had lost.

            Carolyne stopped, smiling, her features darker with each passing moment.  Her rapier gleamed in her hand, fresh blood gathered at its edge.  Alex knew the difference between them, and it was their intent.  Carolyne was a killer.  Maybe she always had been, maybe Goliath was just a way to get her feet wet.

            Shana stirred in the distance, waking slowly and sitting up.  Carolyne saw her, and her smile sharpened.  Her Voice began to glow.

            Pricking acanthi, strike from shadows and poison the soul.

            “Move” Alex whispered to herself, watching what Carolyne watched, willing her body into action.  “Move!”

            It was adrenaline that finally moved her.  Her body ached and it fought her all the way, but Alex fought harder.  She was up and in front of Shana in the space of a breath.  There, she planted her feet and turned.  Her Voice changed in a flash of gleaming, liquid steel.  A shield formed, the maiden’s gem taking the dragon’s place at the fore.  Alex lifted it high enough to cover her torso, and then she felt each needle that entered her body.

            Every nerve in Alex’s body flared to life with pulsing pain.  Shining spiritual needles were spread across her lower torso and imbedded across her legs and thighs.  There were too many to count, like she was overstuffed.  A few were fixed into her arms as well and scattered across her left shoulder, but the bulk of her upper torso was safe.  The shield was fine.

            Alex’s vision blurred, and her Voice blurred with it.  She wheezed, and the air continued to feel like fire in her lungs.  She felt the blood leaving her in what felt like gushing gallons, and Carolyne allowed no time for recovery.  Her little feet carried her swiftly across the battlefield.  She lunged, and Alex braced for impact.  The air grew tight, like a river passing through the eye of a needle. 

            Pushed to the edge of existence and sinking into the void!

            Time froze.  Alex didn’t see it happen.  She hardly even felt it.  Her vision blurred again, and then it blacked.  She took a strained breath and looked down, and as she came to, she found Carolyne’s blade had passed through her shield, through her arm, and pierced her chest.  At that moment, she exhaled, and all of the heat left her body.

            Three Gods exploded into particles of light.  Carolyne’s Voice slid free, wet and thin.  Alex looked up, her right arm now limp at her side, and she looked upon Carolyne standing in rapturous glory, and she, Alex, felt nothing at all.  There were no regrets, nothing to resolve, not even any pain.  All she felt was a growing numbness that started in her digits and worked inward.

            She thought of Alicia, and then she collapsed.

 

: Bridges :

 

            Shana watched Alex collapse, her body a limp mass of pale limbs.  The needles that covered half her body vanished into wisps of smoky light.  Shana’s body moved of its own accord, her mind being too shocked to send orders.  With one hand she caught Alex’s bloody body.  With the other, she summoned her Voice and swung wide.  Carolyne leapt away wearing a vicious smile.

            After that, Shana screamed.  She intended to cry but couldn’t produce tears.  It wasn’t pain that she felt.  It was horror.  Losing Alex was like losing her heart.  Alex had always been there, and now she was gone.  The change was sudden, too sudden for her to process.  She held Alex tight in her arms, refusing to let her go, and she glared at Carolyne.

            “What,” Carolyne asked silkily, pinching her finger and thumb against the flat of her thin blade and wiping the blood off.  “Do you want to join her?”

            Shana took a shuddering breath and laid Alex to rest on the bridge.  Crossing her arms over her chest and closing the empty eyes, Shana stood, lifting Heart Song as she did.  She stared at Caorlyne again, and this time she didn’t see the girl with whom she constantly vied for Alex’s attention.  She didn’t even see an animal.  As far as Shana concerned, Carolyne was a walking corpse.

            She charged, hammer in hand, and gave a high, wild swing meant to take off Carolyne’s head.  The attack was surprisingly swift and hit with meteoric force.  Carolyne lifted her blade just in time to block but couldn’t hold her ground.  She was staggered, her stance broken.  Shana spun, using the momentum to swing again.  Carolyne avoided the attack, which crashed into the bridge and crumbled the floor, dropping small chunks of stone into the gaping abyss below.

            Carolyne staggered to a stop and ducked low.  She meant to lunge at Shana but hadn’t the time to respond.  Shana was an elemental force driven by rage and loss, and Carolyne before she could attack, Shana was already pressing her.  Shana stepped in with her hammer level and lunged first, driving the head of the hammer into Carolyne’s side.  Carolyne blocked the attack by angling her blade to catch the hammers crown with its flat edge.  She reinforced it with her palm but didn’t have the strength to hold.  Her tiny body was sent flying backward into the railing at the edge of the bridge.  Blood oozed from the shallow gash across her palm.

            Shana allowed no time think.  She swung again, meaning to remove Carolyne’s head.  The blow missed by a few inches and sent a nearby pillar spiraling off into the distant wall.  Carolyne dropped low and, instead of taking her opening, ran.  She moved as fast as her unsteady legs to would allow and put distance between herself and her enemy.

            Finally, Shana stopped.  She bowed her head and drew a deep breath.  Her mind cleared, opened to the angry, mournful whale song of her Voice.  It washed over her, words spreading through her and forming on her lips.  She leaped into the air as she repeated them.

            All stars in heaven, hear my call, and fall upon this world in a storm of light!

            A brilliant surrounded her as she spun in the air.  Her Voice carried her higher and a whale’s crooning filled the empty air.  At apex, she swung her hammer in a flourish and then brought the light down.  A sphere descended and, from within that sphere, a series of small, translucent daggers appeared.  They spread away from her like ships at sea leaving port, leaving a fluorescent trail in their wake and, each spiraling and drifting gracefully through the air, they all rained down on Carolyne.

            Carolyne had stopped to watch but now resumed her movement.  She didn’t run, and she kept no formal pattern.  Instead, she danced between them, hopping from point to point and avoiding the gleaming shards where they settled like the snow.  She blocked one with her blade and it erupted with enough force to throw her to the ground and send her sliding.

            She sat up just in time to find Shana closing distance again, and she was to her feet just in time to receive the next attack.  Again, she braced herself for it, stabbing her rapier into the ground and putting her shoulder against the flat of it for support.  She was determined to hold this time, but the hammer hit too hard.  Carolyne went tumbling into the nearby railing, which gave this time under her momentum.  A smear of blood followed along the ground after her.

            Switching hands, Carolyne stabbed the stonework again just as she was halfway off the bridge.  She held with one foot and one hand, the rest of her body hanging over the darkness.  Blood ran down her left arm, which felt both numb and somehow poorly fitted to her body.  It appeared mangled to her, the muscle and bone at an odd angle with her shoulder, and it made her sick to even see it.

            She pulled herself back onto the bridge and found Shana waiting breathless but unrelenting.  Carolyne found the look of the other woman to be frightening and, in truth, more like herself than like the Shana she knew and hated.  Carolyne was a killer, it was true, but she feared that Shana would soon steal the title from her.

            Carolyne lifted her left hand and pressed it, open palm, into a nearby pillar.  Once steadied, she leaned into it hard and felt a sharp pain go through her spine and settle, cold and sick, in her stomach.  With a crack and a curse, she felt her arm slide back into place, and then she stood and lifted her blade once more. 

She stared across the bridge to Shana, and she smiled.  “Now, where were we?”

 

: Bridges :

 

On a far wall, standing atop a long forgotten, stone crafted idol, two figures watched the battle unfold.  One with dark skin and long grey hair, the other small and stout and pale with dark hair and dark eyes.  The tall one stood straight with his shoulders squared and his hands folded behind his back.  He watched with intense interest and unwavering focus.  The other, a woman, was crouched beside him and hugging herself tightly.  She did not care for what she saw.

“This is horrible,” the woman, Carla, said.  “They’re going to kill each other.”

“Yes.” Crest smiled. “They will.  It is the only way that this can end.”

Carla looked up at him.  “Are you telling me that one of them has to die?”

“Obviously.  Do you really think that girl will let her friend’s death pass so easily?”  He shrugged.  “As it stands now, she is going to rampage until she destroys Carolyne utterly.  It doesn’t matter, though, Carolyne never meant much to the master.”

Carla frowned and returned her focus to the bridge.  She watched them trade blows.  Carolyne struggled.  “But she’s one of us.”

“She doesn’t matter.  Master is in meditation.  The plan has come along too far to stop now.”  Crest cast a sideways glance at her and let his smile fade.  “Unless,” he said as if in contemplation, “Unless they somehow find a way to free the lady.”

Carla balled her fists until her knuckles went wide.  Her frown deepened.  “But we’ve worked so hard,” she said. “We’ve sacrificed so much.”

Crest gave another shrug and wore a mask of indifference.  “Then the best way to stop them is to stop them now, it seems.”

“How?”

“Help Carolyne.”

“Crest, I can’t—I won’t do that.  If I augment her now, with how unstable her emotions are,” her hands began to shake, she gripped herself so tightly, “If I did that, then she might lose control of herself and become lost to the power.”

“And if you don’t, she will die.”  Crest turned her back on it.  “Either way, I don’t care much.  If Carolyne dies, then I kill the girl. Carolyne lives, then she kills the girl.  Either way, that girl will have to die for the plan.  I just assumed you would want to save one life if you could.”

Carla scowled as she watched Carolyne duck and falter, a lost soul in desperate need of saving.  “Fine,” she said, her breath hard and showing her disapproval.  “I get what you’re saying, and I’ll do it, but I’ll need silence.”

Crest touched her shoulder.  Even through his gloves, his fingers were cold and made the hair on neck stand on end.  He leaned down and whispered to her, “You do what you must.”  Then, he disappeared into the shadows.

Alone, Carla pushed him out of her thoughts.  She cleared her mind first and created a place for Carolyne to be.  Eyes closed, she sat with her legs crossed and back straight.  Three long breaths followed, and she opened her eyes to watch Carolyne again, watch Carolyne attack, watch her retreat, watch her brace against the railing and twist.  Carolyne screamed, and Carla began to speak.

“Strength.”

 

: Bridges :

 

Strength.

Carolyne stood stiff, her blade at her side.  It was hard to breathe, and it was even harder to move.  Shana’s attacks were ruthless and relentless, and Carolyne just didn’t have the strength to stand up against them.

Power.

She widened her stance and raised her rapier, training the sharpened tip on Shana’s chest.  Running was no longer an option, not after Alex died, and surrender wouldn’t work either.  Shana wanted blood.  She wanted death, and Carolyne was no different.  Goliath died by her hand.  So did Alex.  She wanted Shana, too.

Might.

Shana stopped.  A change came over Carolyne, one so prominent that it cleaved through Shana’s rage and struck her in the gut.  She watched Carolyne’s muscles tighten, watched her eyes narrow, watched her focus shift.  She watched the bloodstained rapier drift slightly before finding its mark and moving toward it.  When Carolyne moved, she moved like lightning.  Shana could barely raise her weapon to meet the thrust, and she only just barely managed to deflect the second strike that followed.

Force.

Shana shouted.  A third attack had clipped her side and cut clean through.  She stumbled away with a large trail of blood following.  As she retreated, she gave a wild swing backward, one that Carolyne danced around before pricking Shana again.  It was a shallow thrust that landed just above her left breast.  A ribbon of blood was left across the railing.

Shana retreated slowly, struggling to keep stable footing.  Carolyne moved with her, striking with increasing alacrity and precision.  Shana was still stronger, but she couldn’t land a hit.  She gritted her teeth and strained to follow Carolyne’s movements, but she always swung where Carolyne was, not where she would be.

Conversely, Carolyne kept low to the ground.  She ducked under blows or simply went around them, and she put her weight behind each thrust.   She threw herself into combat, showing reckless abandon as she thrust, over and over again, for Shana’s heart.

Shana swung for the legs and planned her next move before it hit.  Once she had Carolyne grounded, she would bring her hammer down on the other woman’s head.  Then, she would attend to Alex’s wounds however she could.

Potency.

Carolyne stopped and stabbed her blade into the ground.  Shana’s hammer hit and did nothing.  Using her continuing momentum, Carolyne flipped over her weapon and landed on the other side, pulling it from the ground after her and driving the hilt into Shana’s breastbone.  Shana fell, landing beside Alex’s corpse, and when she looked up, she found Carolyne standing over her.

A savage smile parted Carolyne’s lips.  Her teeth her fang-like, her eyes that of a rabid wolf.  “Look at you,” she said in her growing mania.  “Look at you two!  Even in death, you refuse to be apart.”  She scowled.  “Pathetic.”

“Shut up.”

Ferocity.

“Worms.  You’re worms.  You’re just a bunch of worms beneath my fucking feet! You’re not fit to be in the Emotion.  You’re not even fit for the fucking Earth.  You’re scum.  You’re just fucking scum, and so was she!”

“I told you to shut up!”

“And now, now I’m going to cleanse the earth of you.  Wipe away all trace of you!”  She threw her head back and laughed a high, wild laugh.  She wasn’t Carolyne anymore.  Now, she was power, wild and unrestrained, and it wore Carolyne’s face.  “I’m going to show you what true potential is.  I’m going to give you a good fucking example of perfection!”  Her eyes went wide while her body convulsed.  “Watch closely!”

The wind rose.  The air grew tense and warm.  Sparks danced across Carolyne’s arm.  Brilliant flashes of light appeared in the darkness and faded just as suddenly.  Carolyne glowed.  Suspended by a phantom force, her small body was lifted into the air.  Energy, raw energy, flowed from her in great crashing waves that washed over Shana.

Carolyne released her Voice and let it float freely before her.  She kept her arms extended, holding them at her side, her fingers spread like wings.  Blurred green lights appeared, mingling with the darkness, sizzling as they faded.

Shana covered her eyes and held her stomach.  She felt weak, and she felt nauseous, and she knew also that death was near.  Fear hit her like a punch to the throat.  She shook and crawled over Alex’s lifeless body, holding her close.  She wasn’t ready to die and had her whole life in front of her, but she felt some comfort in knowing that they would be together.  Briefly, she wondered what heaven would be like.

O’ Morning Star!  Be our Guide into the pits of Hell.  Sear our flesh! Melt our bone! Burn away our souls!

 

: Bridges :

 

It was just a pinch, and then it was nothing.  The world went white, and then it went black, and then it was nothing at all.  Void followed, a vast emptiness beyond sunshine and shadows.  There she felt nothing, and there she wanted for nothing.  Oblivion greeted her, and even that was fleeting.

Her senses died one by one.  There was buzzing, then silence, and then the absence of sound.  Touch faded next, and then taste, and smell.  Soon, she wasn’t even a body.  She became a soul, her mind hazy and uncertain.

She asked herself, her empty, incorporeal self, where she should go.  She wondered if there were promises to keep.  She was tired, though, too tired to go any further, too tired for the struggles that would be waiting to test her, too tired for the promises that she would inevitably make.  There were shadows where she died, deep shadows with a bottomless hunger.  She fell into them.  She embraced them.

Then, she heard a call.  It was like a shout but softer, but it persisted inside of her.  Like an itch at the back of her throat, except she had no throat.  It wasn’t a promise, and it wasn’t a sound, but it echoed inside of her all the same, over and over again.  It became an anthem, repeating eternally like a stone skipping across water and the ripples that followed.

Shana was in danger, and Alex was needed.

 

: Bridges :

 

Light spilled off of Carolyne’s suspended body.  Every wall, every crevice in the room was illuminated by her power.  Even the bottomless pit below revealed its secrets to the world to the world, though Carolyne shown so bright that it distracted anyone who would notice.  Carla, horrified by what she had done, watched in silent, awed terror from her idol perch.

Shana, kneeled on the bridge, shielded her eyes from the light.  She was crouched over Alex’s lifeless body, protecting her with her own life.  The tables had turned, and now there was nothing left that Shana could do but pray and wait for death.  From where she was, Shana thought that her death seemed tragic but also beautiful.

Alex remained cold and pale.  The blood beneath her had pooled and darkened.  Small incisions were left across her body.  One thin, deep puncture wound was pressed into her chest.  Her lips were stained and cracked, her face bruised.  She already had the appearance of a corpse and a decaying one at that.

Then, Alex moved.

Her left index finger twitched, curling ever so slightly.  Then, it went flat.  She pushed herself to standing, ripping her body from Shana’s grasp.  From Carolyne’s perspective, so high in the air, Alex was an ant resurrected, waiting to be squashed after surviving the magnifying glass.  From Shana’s perspective, Alex was the dead risen.  She sat back and watched in stomach-twisting rapture as her best friend came back to life.

Alex moved sluggishly, a puppet on loose wires.  Her eyes remained dark and glossy.  Shana didn’t know if she should be relieved or horrified and decided to wait and find out.  Alex’s arms flashed.  Liquid steel appeared in the air and took the form of a shield, a blue gem held by a maiden at its center.

She fixed her glass-like eyes on Carolyne, floating above.  Then, crouching slightly, she leapt with all her might and took off into the air with a loud grunt.  She sailed on the wind, a dark figure cutting through the light.  Her body cast a long shadow that swelled along the walls, growing larger the closer she got to Carolyne.

Carolyne adjusted her aim, directing her Voice toward a familiar target—Alex.  Light flowed and shifted around her, cascading like a river and gather at the tip of her blade, dew on a leaf.  There it bloomed and swelled in a searing flash.

-Alex lifted her shield and entered the downpour of light.  It parted around her, barreling into the bridge and into the wall beyond her.  Shana watched as the light ate away at the stonework, eroding it as sure as time.  She sat stiff, dust and smoke filling the room, afraid to move, afraid to be caught up in the growing chaos.

The light grew brighter than the sun.  It speared the shield and spilled off harmlessly around Alex, who kept climbing through the air, her momentum growing against the friction.  Carolyne took hold of her rapier and the anger swelled inside of her tiny little chest.  She had thought Alex dead, and she was resolved now to make it true.

When the light faded Alex had passed through unarmed.  Carolyne trained her weapon on her enemy’s throat and prepared to kill her for a second time.  She smiled, knowing from experience that she shield would not hold.  She saw the scratches across the surface of the shield, saw where the light had eaten away at the shining gemstone, saw the shimmering fragments of light still imbedded in the spiritual steel.

Alex extended her arm on the way and directed her balled fist toward Carolyne’s blade point.  The shield shifted like liquid, the steel surging forward into a flattened, blade-like form.  The red and blue jeweled turned, circling each other, and came to rest in union, sharing their place upon Alex’s forearm.  They shined like twin stars, their lights competing against each other and merging where they met.

They met, blade first, and their souls collided.  The air around them hardened.  It was the briefest of moments, followed immediately by a resolution, but to them it stretched on for a lifetime.  Carolyne’s Voice, so loud but so hollow, splintered and collapsed.  Alex was carried through, the momentum sending her blade first into Carolyne’s tiny chest and then upward through the ceiling.  They passed through the brickwork like a cannon blast and disappeared from Shana’s view.

They erupted into another room, reached apex, and then landed hard a short distance from their entry point.  They came apart on impact, tumbling across the floor.  Alex rolled into a wall and came to a hard stop.  Carolyne slid, face-down, to a halt.

Light filled Alex, who wondered if she was finally dead.  She opened her eyes and found herself at rest on her back beside a lake.  She was lying in knee-high grass that swayed with the breeze, appearing to her almost like endless rows of wheat.  The air was clear, and so was the sky.  When she sat up, she saw a forest of pines, oaks, and ashes on the far shore.  Turning, she saw more behind her.

She stood.  A cabin was nearby, rustic and made with loving care from logs and effort.  She could tell from the fine details, the frayed wood, the small imperfections, that it was built by amateur hands.  It was rough but deeply loved, and it stood, stalwart against the silence, complete and alone.

Alex climbed to the cabin’s deck and stopped at the front door.  It had a screen door inside, unlocked and open.  She peeked inside and found a polished interior.  A small, old couch was tucked against a wall to her left, a tiny homemade coffee table at rest before it, a miniscule fireplace was cut into the far wall.  The room was warm, welcoming, but empty.  Prolonged exposure drained the warmth from it.

Carolyne was at rest on the couch, and she looked bored.  She sat with her legs crossed and leaning back, staring at the far wall.

“Carolyne?”  Alex spoke in a whisper.  Carolyne looked at her and nodded, and Alex entered the cabin.

“Alexandra.”  Her tone was not unfriendly.

Alex closed the door behind her and took in the room.  It felt larger inside.  Windows were set into the walls and showed her outside.  There were two doorways leading out of the room, one into a kitchen which Alex could see, one which Alex could not see.  “What’s going on? I thought you killed me.”

“So did I,” said Carolyne.  “Apparently, we were wrong.”

Alex nodded.  She walked the room and settled beside Carolyne on the couch.  She tucked her hair back before making eye contact with the other woman.  “Apparently,” she said.  “So, no more fighting?”

“I guess not.”  Carolyne sighed.  “What’s the point of fighting when you’re already dead?”

“Dead?”  Alex stared at Carolyne and realized she was talking to a dead person, and she felt silly for being so surprised.  Death didn’t seem to hold too much meaning in the Emotion.  Alex had died a few times already.

They sat together in silence, staring at the wall.  The warm light that filled the room was offset by the empty cold that permeated the wood.  Carolyne crossed her arms and held herself.  She seemed contemplative and, as usual, irritated.

Alex leaned forward to peek into the other room and found a small bed inside.  The bed was made up with a thick quilt tucked in around the mattress and sunlight framing it.  A closet was built into the wall that she could see, and a hand-wrought bench was at rest at the foot of the bed.  The house interior was larger than she thought, but it felt somehow small and suffocating to her.  She felt unwelcome.  Sitting back, Alex hugged one of her legs to her chest.  Carolyne broke the silence.

“My grandfather,” she said, “He spent the last ten years of his life working on this place.  Week after week, year after year, he’d come up to the lake and bleed over this damn thing.  Then, as soon as he finished, he bought the farm.”  She let out a half-chuckle, an empty breath meant to punctuate the sentence.  “So much work, so much effort, and all for nothing.  I decided,” and her voice wavered.  She took a deep breath.  “I decided that I wouldn’t live like that, and that I sure as hell wouldn’t die like that.  I wouldn’t waste my life on something without purpose.”  She turned to Alex and looked her in the eyes, and Alex saw that she was crying.  “I won’t let it end this way.  I won’t be forgotten.  I won’t just die and fade away like him.  I refuse.  I deserve more.”

Alex sighed and leaned forward to stare at the ground.  She saw her reflection in the glossy finish.  “Maybe, just maybe, Carolyne, this is actually what’s best for you.”

“No!”  Carolyne, and she stomped her feet, and she waved her arms at the air, beating at the empty space and swinging at the inconvenience of it all.  “No,” she said again, calming.  Hate still seized her voice, but it made her sound flat and faraway.  “No.  I am meant for something more, for something greater.  I had the potential, you know, the potential to be something, to be anything.”

She turned away from Alex and walked to the center of the room.  Then, she lifted her gaze and fixed it on the open doorway leading out of the cabin.  “It’s time for me to go.”  She walked to the doorway and stopped at its threshold.  The warm exterior light spilled in and cast a glowing, golden blanket over her body.  It did nothing to warm her features.  She looked back at Alex.  “There’s still so much to be done.  Goodbye, Alex.”

When she stepped through the doorway, she was gone.

Alex blinked back tears and soon lost herself in a flash of light.  The room faded.  She found herself somewhere else, lost in another memory.  The horizon was on fire just over the hills and the trees.  She stood in a field of wheat as tall as her ribs.  A slender woman stood beside her, a slender woman with long tawny hair and eyes like the sky.  “It will be okay,” said a voice on the wind, warm and reassuring.  Alex’s chest became weightless and so did the rest of her.

            “Alicia? Is that you?”

            “You’ve got to keep on living.”  The voice was faint in Alex’s ear, and it was sad.  “I love you, Alex, and I always will, but I’m not ready to see you yet.  You have to keep going for me, okay?”

            “I will.”  Alex leaned forward, arms open to embrace the other woman, but it was too late.  The woman faded in her arms.  Alex whined.  “No.  No, please, no, come back!”

            “I can’t go with you.”

            Alex sprinted through the field, trampling the wheat as she moved.  She led with her open arms as a child might.  It was warm for autumn, she remembered.  “Sometimes,” she said, “I feel so weak, like I can barely breathe, like I don’t deserve to.  Alicia, I’ve fallen so many times, I’m beginning to think…”

            She heard a sigh on the wind, warm and familiar, and it brought a sardonic smile to her face.  “Now, now, don’t you go saying that.  You’re a sweet girl, and you can be strong if you need to be.  And you will need to be.  Sometimes you fall.  Everyone does.  So, if you ever feel too weak, just remember that you’re not alone.  You have friends.  You have Shana.  Rely on her when your legs give out.  Do whatever you have to, just don’t quit standing up, okay?”

            Alex was quiet.

            “Alex, tell me you understand.  Tell me that you believe me.”

            “I understand,” Alex said after a great and heavy sigh.  “I believe you.”

            “Now mean it.”

            Alex allowed a smile, even through her tears.  “I understand,” she said.  “I believe.”

            “Good girl.”  The voice had grown proud but distant.  “Now, I really do have to go.”

            “Now?”

            “I’m sorry.”

            “I know,” Alex said, and she wiped her eyes.  “Goodbye.”

 

: Bridges :

 

            Ellen walked endlessly.  She climbed infinite steps, passing empty corridors that led only to shadows and, sometimes, when she followed them, nothing.  Isaac was gone and, without him, she was lost and half-expecting to find Carolyne hiding somewhere among the ruins.

            After what felt like hours, she saw a small spike of sunlight stabbing deep into the darkened heart of the ruin interior.  She followed it through a short, dusty entryway and up another set of narrow stairs, rounded and cracked with age, where she came out at another set of stairs, one leading up toward the light and the other down into the darkness.

            She chose the light and made a short climb to a large, rectangular room with a high ceiling.  The roof was open and midday light brightened illuminated the floor.  A clear, blue sky smiled down at her.  Pillars lined the wall, forming a smaller rectangle within the room.  Huge murals were engraved in the walls.  They showed great and terrible battle, and many bore deep, long gashes that obscured their features to her.

            She walked the room until she saw a hole in the floor and Carolyne lying a few feet away from it.  To her, Carolyne looked very much the same, only pale and, upon closer inspection, dead.  A large, red wound was opened upon her chest.  She was curled up like an infant at rest.  Alex was a few feet away, her back to a wall, her body pale, bruised, and bloody, but she was breathing.  For a moment, Ellen thought she saw someone beside her, a woman wrapped in a cloak of yellow sunlight, with long beautiful hair that hung nearly to her waist, but when Ellen blinked the figure was gone.

            Ellen went to Alex’s side and kneeled beside her.  She touched her shoulder gently and shook her awake, whispering her name as she did.  There were tears in Ellen’s eyes.  Alex stirred and, blinking, eyes glossy and distant, she whispered, “Alicia?”

            Ellen tilted her head to the side.  “No, Alex, no.  It’s me, Ellen.  Are you okay?”

            Alex looked Ellen over and sighed.  Her body seemed to sag, but only for a moment, and then she surprised Ellen with an embrace.  Ellen held her after gathering herself.  “I’m fine,” Alex said.  “It’s good to see you.”

            “You, too.”  They parted, and Ellen looked away from Alex and toward Carolyne.  “What happened to,” and her words died when she found nothing.  Carolyne was gone without even a droplet of blood to remember her by.  Ellen searched the room and, finding them alone, went silent.

            “A lot has happened.”  Alex stood.  “I don’t really want to talk about it.” Footsteps echoed up a set of nearby stairs.  Ellen put herself behind Alex and peeked over her shoulder.  Alex positioned herself purposefully between Ellen and the stairway.  “Stay behind me,” she said.  “I’ll protect you.”  Ellen pinned her back to the wall.

            Shana appeared, limping out of the stairwell and dragging herself toward them.  Like Alex, her injuries drew Ellen’s attention, but none of them were bad enough to garner lingering concern.  She and Alex met and held each other.  “Alex,” she said, her voice choked and soft.  “Alex, are you okay?”

            Alex moved Shana, repositioning her body so that she could support her.  “I’m fine,” she said, and she looked Shana over.  Her eyes lingered on the small lacerations that were evenly spread across Shana’s torso and limbs, once minute puncture marks and now dried blood.  “What about you? What happened?”

            “After Carolyne stabbed you…”

            “Don’t talk about that,” Alex said.  She stared into the distance.  “I don’t really want to think about it.”

            Shana stared into Alex’s eyes for a moment.  A few seconds passed before Alex returned her attention on Shana who, seeing her like that, merely said, “Okay,” and followed Alex to Ellen’s side.  With Ellen’s aid, Shana was put against the wall and slid into a seated position.  She smiled weakly at them as they moved her.  “Where did she go?”

            “I’m not sure,” Alex said.  “Here, let me help you.”  She closed her eyes and summoned her Voice.  Spiritual steel formed from the air, appearing as a shield, and Alex put her hand to Shana’s wounds.  Shine bright as the moon.  O’halo, do protect.

            Shana winced and then relaxed.  A warm breath passed over her and, when Alex removed her hands, Shana’s wound was gone.  Alex repeated the process, passing her hand over different wounds and knitting them together with a touch.  Shana lifted her eyebrows and smiled.  “And when did you learn to do that?”

            Alex shrugged.  “I don’t know,” she said.  “I just can now.  You know how these things work.  The soul tells us how to do it, and then we do it.”  Shana nodded, and Alex helped her to standing.  Her Voice faded then, disappearing into the light.  “I think Abraham is nearby.  I felt her when we first arrived.  We’ve got Ellen, and now we’ve got you, so we just need to get her, and then we can go home.”

            “Do you think we’ll find her,” Ellen asked.  She was still against the wall, and she was still scared, but having Alex and Shana close by made things better.  She thought of Isaac and decided that wherever he was, he would be okay on his own.

            Alex nodded.  “Yeah,” she said, and she smiled at them both.  Color was returning to her skin.  She turned toward the doorway set into the far wall.  “Come on, you two, let’s go finish this.”  She took Shana by the hand while Ellen stood and the three of them set out together.

 

: Bridges :

 

            Isaac woke on a bridge, his body awash with sunlight.  He heard life all around him.  Water trickled.  The wind stirred trees.  People passed him, speaking in a tongue he didn’t understand.  Cars honked and rolled by, spilling exhaust that stifled the air.  He opened his eyes slowly and found himself at rest on a white stone bridge, on his back, watching the clouds drift by.  Ellen was nowhere to be seen.

Indigo: Abraham, Emotion Vol. 3: Bridges, Chapter Eleven: "The Island, part three"

 

Volume Three: Bridges

 

Oh, we burned those bridges,

Oh, and we forgot their names

 

Chapter Eleven: The Island, part three

 

            Shana sat in the dark, holding Alex and watching her sob.  After all of this time spent fighting, after every struggle and lesson learned, Shana felt useless.  For the past ten years she has done everything she could to drag Alex along after her, but in the moment when Alex needed her most, the best she could do was hold her and watch.

            It hurt, and it scalded, and worst still, Alex’s Voice watched, too.  As Shana understood it, a person’s Voice was a part of them, it was their soul, maybe a small fraction of them, but still one so vital.  She began glaring at Alex’s Voice, from time-to-time, mostly as something to do to pass the time.

            Her own Voice had helped her when lost, Shana remembered.  It guided her to Alex, helped her to help a friend, but Shana thought it was fitting that Alex wouldn’t be able to help herself, or at least wouldn’t want to.  Alex lived only for other people.  It could have been admirable, if it weren’t so sad.

            I want to help her, Alex’s Voice said suddenly, its tone shifting like the shadows.  But I can’t.  It isn’t my place.  This is something she must overcome herself before we can speak again.  She is at a distance from herself, fragmented and separated inside.  When the whole isn’t united, neither am I, and until she can achieve balance, she will be unable to access my true potential.

            Shana sighed.  She didn’t like it, but she figured the Voice was right.  Alex was strong, stronger than she realized, but Shana still worried.  A Voice, the projection of a person’s will, is intention made real.  It is difficult to harness that power when someone has no intentions of their own, when their own will has withered away.  The Voice, Shana realized, is no more capable of helping Alex than she is.  Both were impotent.

            So, she hugged Alex tighter and waited.  It was comforting to think that she could at least be there for her, and she hoped that somewhere in her nightmares, Alex could feel her warmth and know that even when she is alone, she’s never actually alone.

 

: Bridges :

 

            Alex stared at the ghostly image of her past, dark eyes wide with shock, small mouth parted as she begged for an explanation.  Her parents stood there, ineffectual shades staring at the body that was their eldest child.  Beyond rest Alicia, or what was Alicia, skin pale, tawny hair fanned about her.

            She was sitting up, back to the door, holding herself and sobbing still.  Blood ran where she bit her lips, but she hardly felt it.  Periodically, she wiped her tears away, but she couldn’t stop staring.  It had taken everything she had in her to look again, and it would take more to look away.

            “What’s going to happen to her now,” Alex asked, now a little girl, sobbing at her parent’s feet.  “What’s going to happen to me?”  She came near, staggering away from her parent’s statue-like stillness and toward her future self.  They looked very much the same, eyes bloodshot, bodies shaking.  They were the same, because they knew the truth but refused to accept it.

            Alex hugged herself tight and pretended like Shana was there.  She pretended that she felt the other woman’s warmth in the darkness and, when she blinked, she told herself Shana was there, just outside the door, waiting for her.  It was impossible, and she knew that, but it still gave her comfort.

            “Please,” the younger her asked, staggering by that point, fatigued by her sorrow.  “Please, tell me.  What is going on?  Why won’t you tell me?”

            “Leave me alone,” Alex whispered, hiding herself behind her hair.

            “What happened to my sister?”  The younger Alex grabbed the older Alex’s arm.  Her hands were small and weak, her fingers pale.  She tugged feebly, whined.  “Bring her back.  Bring her back to me!”

            “I said leave me alone!”  Alex pushed her away and turned her back now.  She closed her eyes and hid herself in her arms, and she took herself into the darkness by pushing everything out.  White walls, childish wails, cold bodies, she pushed it all away and embraced instead the void.  It was impossible to feel the pain, she told herself, if she didn’t feel anything at all.

            But she did feel.  She felt it all, and she couldn’t ignore it anymore.  Nothing stays buried, and she felt the tiny fists beating on her back, dull and slow, weak as a newborn, but there.  It cried in her ear and against her back, where she had carried it for so long, and it refused to be ignored anymore.

            In a fit of anger, Alex turned, and she shoved the little girl away.  “Shut! Up!  Just shut up!  Crying won’t help!  Crying won’t change anything at all!  She’s dead.  Dead!  And she’s not coming back!  You can beg, you can cry, you can kill yourself to follow after, and none of it matters.  She’s DEAD!”

 

: Bridges :

 

            Shana jerked awake.  At some point, she had fallen asleep around Alex, and she wasn’t sure when.  She felt tired and sore, eyes still half-lidded as she regarded the darkness around her. A shout had pulled her from sleep, from a dream of Voices and Emotions, from a world where nothing and everything was real, and when she found herself in shadows she realized it wasn’t a dream at all.

            Alex flailed beside her, cursing in the darkness in her slumber.  She swung at the air, swung at herself, and it took Shana to hold her and catches the blows.  Shana pinned Alex to the ground, wincing as a wild swing caught her in the face, and she ignored it and hugged her close.

            “It’s alright,” she whispered, gritting as she was struck again.  “It’s alright, Alex.  It’s okay.  I’m here.  I’m here with you.  So, it’s alright.”

            The Voices watched from the side, unmoving, impartial, as Alex sobbed and writhed.  As Alex eased, so did Shana, and she held her still and rubbed her back, and she let her cry.

            Three Gods approached, silent and critical.  I’ve always wandered, and I have to know, it said in a voice that married thunder and rain, Why are you always there for her?  Why do you help her so much?

            Shana smiled and wiped away the sweat from Alex’s forehead.  Alex eased in her grasp and settled more, her breathing growing regular.  “Because she’s my best friend,” she said after some time, “And because I love her.”

 

: Bridges :

 

            Alex stared at the wall, silent.  She had turned her back on her little world again.  There was no point in looking.  She knew how the story ended, played it on repeat in her head and in her heart for the past ten years.  Whenever the tears came, she would just loop that moment over and over again until they stopped, and they had stopped.  There was now nothing left in her to cry out.  She was hollow.

            Little Alex joined her, squatted beside her and stared with the same glassy-eyed emptiness.  “Soon, I’ll be just like you,” she said after a long silence.  In that time no one cried.  For a moment, Alex felt not good but at least not bad, either.  When her younger self spoke, though, there was a pricking in the back of her head.  “I’ll be empty.”

            Alex scowled but didn’t look at her.  She stared, fixedly, at those damn white walls.  “I’m not empty,” she said, and when there was no response, she kept speaking.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.  And you can’t just say things like that, things that aren’t true.”  When she turned to look, she found her younger self staring back at their parents.

            Their parents, or the specters of them, were fixed in place, frozen in a perpetual state of sorrow.  They wept crystal tears that didn’t fall, stood linked at the arms, slouched and ineffective.  Little Alex spoke, “It wasn’t that they didn’t understand, or that they didn’t love her like you did.  You lost a sister, but they lost a daughter, and they just didn’t know how to help.  At first, you were so wild, nothing but unbridled emotions while they were trying to mourn.  By the time they were recovered enough to help you along, though, you were emotionless.  It was too late for them help you along, because you were rooted in place.  You buried it all inside of you and kept it guarded by tantrums, tears, and quiet.”

            “Shut. Up.”

            “And you’re doing it again.”  Little Alex looked at her, straight ahead, glassy-eyed, empty, a perfect reflection.  “It’s the same thing over and over, you know.  Eternal.  Some people never change, and you never did, because you never wanted to.”

            “And who the hell do you think you are?  Sitting on your little throne, looking down on me like you aren’t a part of me!  But here you are!  And if you’re so damn perfect, if you have all the answers, then go ahead and take over! Change me!”  Alex fell into her knees, sobbing hard again.  “You don’t know anything.  You don’t know how hard life is.”

            “You’re right, I don’t.  I never will, because I’ll never be given a chance.  I’ll stay here, beaten down, stunted, swallowed and swallowed until all I am is a whisper in your ear, too faint to even be heard.”  Little Alex stood.  “Do you remember how to laugh, Alex?”

            Alex scowled at the floor.

            “Or do you remember how it feels to smile?  Or to love?  Do even know how to it feels to be sad anymore?”

            “Of course I do.  It’s all I know.”

            “No, Alex, you aren’t sad.  You cry.  Anyone can cry.  It’s just your body, though.  Tears don’t signify sadness.  They just signify tears, which can mean anything.  People cry for joy and, yes, sometimes in sorrow, but not you.  You cry from frustration or emptiness or because you’ve forgotten how to do anything else.”

            “I said shut up!”

            Alex turned, knocking the girl over again, and this time she pinned her down.  She swung, wildly, using her fists to hammer her tiny head into the ground.  “You! Think! You! Know! Me!”  Blood smeared her hands, smeared the floor, splattered across her face, but she kept swinging.  “But! You’re! All! Talk! No! Actions!”

            When she stopped and fell backward. The girl’s skull was broken bone and red blood.  Alex could hardly look at it and turned away to catch her breath.  She could smell the iron on the air.  The body watched her with one good eye, the other ruptured.  The bruises were already setting in.

            “Look at you,” it said, voice wet and raspy.  “You’ve almost done it, almost finished the job.  It’s taken you years, but you’ve nearly killed me off entirely.”

            Alex broke down into tears again, hugging herself more closely and trying to forget the smell of the blood in the air.  “Shut up!”

            “Does it hurt to see the real you?”

            “The real me?”  Alex sat back against the wall, staring at the dead body on the ground, at the dead body in the bed, at the dead bodies standing and crying forever.  “What was it Carolyne said?  I’m a zombie, dead but moving.”  She wiped her tears, smearing blood across her cheeks as she did.  “Is that what I am? Just a body.”

            Little Alex lied still, her head pooling across the floor.  She was small and broken, and Alex memorized every horrible detail.  At this point, she was collecting ghosts, but this one wouldn’t haunt only her.  It would break Shana’s heart and follow her to the grave.

            “I won’t let it happen,” she said, and she sniffed.  “I deserve whatever I get, but Shana deserves better.”  A deep breath, and Alex stood, jaw out, hands balled into bony fists.  “You can’t die,” she said, “Shana needs you.”

            “Is that all that matters to you?  Shana?  Is that all you live for?”

            “Isn’t it enough for now?”  Alex laughed ruefully.  “You said it yourself.  I’m empty, devoid of anything, but Shana...”  Alex stepped forward, scooped up the tiny broken thing and cradled it to her chest.  “No, it’s not fair.  I’ve been empty for so long, leeching life off of those around me, living through them, selfish to the core.  I’ve clung to Shana and used her to keep me going, pretending I was doing it for her and for Alicia but really, I was nothing but a burden to them.”

            “So?”

            “So, I don’t want to be empty anymore.”  She set the girl down on her feet and helped to keep her standing.  “Dying won’t help anyone, and it won’t solve the problem.  It just hurts the people I love.  Hurt Shana.  Maybe even leave her like me, and that won’t help, either.”

            Little Alex swayed unsteadily, held her older self to keep her steady.  “Then, what do you want?”

            “I want to live.  On my own, for me and myself, and for Shana, too, because of all she’s done for me. I owe her that much.”

            Little Alex smiled, and despite the damage done to her, it was a handsome smile. “That’s good to hear,” she said, her voice small but growing clear.  “It won’t be easy, though.  It will take more than resolve to do this, and once you start, you can’t stop.  If you make this decision, you’ll have to follow through.”

            Alex smirked self-consciously.  Isn’t that what life is about?  Besides, if I’m good at anything, it’s moving forward, even if I don’t have a destination in mind.  I just need a direction, and I’ll make it.  I’m sure.”

            “Then go toward the truth,” Little Alex said, pointing to the curtain and the specters.  “Own up to your past.”

            Alex looked ahead and halted.  She held her breath.  “Easy.  I’ve already done this one.”  She swallowed.  “This is just a repeat performance.”

            Another deep breath followed, and she hesitated.  Another deep breath, and doubts surfaced like flotsam after a storm.  It became a repeated pattern, swallowing doubts until they were buried so deep that they couldn’t stop her.  Then, she approached the curtain and put her hand against it.

            She looked at her parents, frozen in time, suspended by her own sorrow.  She looked at little Alex, battered, bruised, and half-dead but still standing in spite of it all.  She looked at herself, somehow, and saw who she was in the past, who she was in the present, and who she may become.  She breathed.  “I can do this.”

            The curtain rattled as she tugged it aside, and she found Alicia on the other side.  Years ago, Alicia was her sun, her moon, and all the stars in her sky.  She was everything Alex could ever want, everything Alex could ever hope to be, and time had changed her.  Alex was almost as tall as Alicia now, stockier in the shoulders.

            Even in death, Alicia was the most beautiful woman Alex ever met.  Her lips were plush, well-formed, her chin slightly pointed.  She was the princess Alex imagined in stories as a child, slumbering with tawny locks spread beneath her.  Her skin was pale as snow, and Alex stood, choked, holding the curtain tight for balance.

            “See,” she breathed after some time, “Not so hard.”  Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she wondered briefly if they were from frustration and decided it probably wasn’t a good sign that she didn’t know.  Time stood still, suspended, always suspended, and she didn’t feel any different.  The moment wasn’t at all like she hoped it would be.  Just an old memory.

            “This is stupid.” She started to turn but couldn’t release the curtain.  It had taken so much effort to get there.  “No, you’re just running.  Eyes open, move ahead.”  She stared at Alicia’s body, released the curtain to take her sister’s hand.  Alicia’s fingers were stiff and cold.

            Time passed and the room was still.  Alex held Alicia’s hand and stood by the bed, and she felt self-conscious.  Her parents were watching.  She was watching.  There were more tears, and she wiped them away.  By this point, the blood on her hands was dried.  She felt like she should say something but couldn’t think of the right words.  When she did, she finally said it all in a whisper.

            “I love you.”  It wasn’t the first time she had said it over the years, but it might have been the first time she meant it as a good thing, and from there the words poured out.  “I’m sure the whole world knows that already, but you know, sometimes it’s hard to admit.  Sometimes, I think that if I talk about you, you’ll be taken away from me again.”  Tears fell from her chin, landed on her hand.  She had to take a slow breath to keep from shaking.  “I think maybe that’s why I held it in for so long.  I wasn’t afraid of being hurt but, afraid that if I ever stopped hurting, I’d lose you over and over again.  Mom and dad, they would say—they told me that you were always alive inside of me, that you were in my memories, but what did that mean to a kid?  I was nine, and I was so young, and so sad, and I thought that meant I couldn’t stop being sad.

            “But that’s no excuse.  I never grew up because I never really knew how to.  After so many years of being sad, it became something like my natural state.  It became a part of me like my singing or...”  She smiled, slightly, and touched Alicia’s hair.  It was as soft as she remembered.  “The memories only made it hurt more, though, and deep down I knew it wasn’t right.  It’s an insult to your life to let your death be the only thing I hold onto.  I was just afraid to admit that because, every year, your laughter becomes harder to remember, and your voice...”  She closed her eyes.  “I don’t even remember what you sound like.”

            Silence fell like the night, and for the first time in ten years, Alex held nothing back.  She cried, and she cried, and it didn’t hurt.  She let it all wash over her, overwhelmed her, and she hugged Alicia tight to her, and she cried.  “I love you, Alicia.  I really do.  I love you, and I miss you.”

            “I miss you, too.”

            Alex went quiet.  She opened her eyes and found that the room was gone.  Now, she was at the graveyard.  There was a funeral in the distance, a crowd of people all in black, and a nine-year-old Alex among them with an eight-year-old Shana at her side, holding her hand, crying with her.  The people left one by one, and the two little girls stayed, staring at the freshly dug grave.  They wouldn’t stop crying until they fell asleep in the back of Alex’s parent’s car.

            Alicia was there with Alex, sitting beside her on the gravestone.  Her flesh had color to it, her cheeks a natural rose blush.  Her eyes were unclouded and her tawny hair fell about her shoulders like a curtain.  They were still holding hands, but her fingers were soft and warm now, and she smiled at Alex.  Looking into her eyes, Alex could almost see her sister standing in a field, wheat waist high, the sun setting behind her.

            “Alicia?  Are you—Are you real?”

            “Yes and no.  I’m a memory,” she said.  “That’s all that’s left of me now, but you already knew that.”

            “Yeah, I do.”  Alex wiped her eyes, but she didn’t let go of her sister’s hand.  “I guess hope springs eternal, huh?”

            “Right.”  Alicia gave a half-smirk.  “You’re looking good.  Tall.  A lot taller than I remember you being.  How long has it been again?”

            “About ten years, but if you’re just a memory, then shouldn’t you know what I know?”

            “You’re thinking too small, Alex.”  Alica’s memory nodded toward the funeral.  “You’re not the only person who ever new me.  People remember, and the world remembers, too.  We all existed together, connected by invisible threads.  When a person dies, their body goes back to the dirt, right?”

            Alex nodded.

            “Memories are the same way.  Everything has a place to go, and everything is eternal.”  She turned her smile back on Alex and lifted one leg to hug it to her chest.  “So, even if you forget, I’m never really forgotten.  Others will remember me and, when they die, the world will remember for them.  History will remember.  I existed, you know, and nothing can take that away from me.  Nothing in the cosmos has that sort of power, not even God.  Do you understand now?”

            “I think so.”  Alex sat beside the memory of her sister and found it smelled like lilacs, like her sister always did.  The voice was familiar, a touch high, and a bit like a bell.  It seemed so real, and as Alex dug her feet into the dirt, she smiled.  “Still, I don’t want to forget you.  I don’t want to go on without you.  And it’s not that I’m not strong enough.  I just really don’t want to lose you anymore than I have.”

            “That’s normal.”  Alicia’s memory reclined back, stretching her legs out, taking her hand away long enough to stretch her arms.  She let out a breath.  “But that’s what I’m getting at.  I’m not gone, and you’re never without me.  I was here, and that is never going to change.  The world will always remember me.”  She took Alex’s hands.  “And so will you.”

            “Even when I forget you’re always with me?”

            “Exactly,” Alicia’s memory said.  “And not like a ghost or anything like that, but in your blood, if you want to be literal.  We’re sisters, after all, and you’ve been crying a bit of me with you for the last ten years.  The rest?  We’ll leave that in your heart.”

            Alex rubbed her own arm self-consciously.  She felt warm now, and soft, like Alicia’s hand.  She allowed another smile.  “Thanks, Alicia, for the help.”

            “No problem.”  Alicia’s memory jumped from the gravestone.  “Now, listen, because here’s where it gets a bit heavy.  Everything else you’ve been doing, all the holding back, all the hurt, that’s got to stop.  You know it’s not the right way, and you know it’s not really living.”  She looked Alex in the eyes.  “You’re not the one who died, so why are you playing the part?”

            “I don’t know.”  Alex shrugged, stared at the ground.  “It just didn’t seem like there were any options left to me.  After you were gone, I didn’t know what to do with myself.”  She met the memory’s gaze again and found that its eyes were just like she remembered.  “I wanted to be you when I was younger, you know.  So, when you died, I didn’t have anyone to grow into.  I guess I just followed your example.”

            “No.  When you lose your way, you cut your own path.  Got that?”

            “Yeah.  I got it.”

            Alicia’s memory put a hand on her hip and tilted her head on one side.  “Then tell me that you’ll live your own life and make your own decisions.”

            “I will.  I’ll live my own life.  I’ll make my decisions.”

            “Good.”  Then, in perfect mimicry of the real Alicia, the memory took Alex’s face between her hands and stared her in the eyes.  “Now, mean it.”

            “I do.  I mean it.  I’ll carry on without you, and I’ll add more memories to the world.  I’ll finish the path you weren’t able to finish, I think.”

            “That’s a good answer, there.”  The memory smiled, and they watched the funeral end and the shades disperse.  “You’ve gotten taller, you know, but I think you’re grown in other ways.”

            “I don’t feel like I’ve grown at all.

            “You have. You’ve got a long way to go, but I think you’re on the right track.”  The memory looked up at the sky.  It was pale and the clouds were thin.  It was a sad day then, but the sun was coming.  “It’s been a long night, hasn’t it?”

            “Too long.”

            “But the dawn is soon.  I think it’s about time you get going.  There are people waiting for you.”

            “Wait.”  Alex took the memory’s hand.  “Can’t I say here with you for a little longer?”

            Alicia’s memory turned to look at her over the shoulder.  “Really, Alex, haven’t you learned anything yet?”

            “I have, but, just think of it as a good bye.  Just a little longer, please.  Even if you’re just a memory, you’re still my sister.”

            “No,” the memory said, sighing, and she embraced Alex.  It was warm and familiar and safe.  “I’m not.  I’m just a memory.”

 

: Bridges :

 

            Alex woke in a field of flowers.  The sky above was clear and, in the distance, she could hear the shifting of the waves as they danced along the shoreline.  The flowers were in full bloom, bright, vibrant petals so beautiful and vivid that they seemed to glow.  The brightest among them, she noted, were the yellows and oranges.

            Shana was with her, holding her close and caressing her hair.  She had one hand under Alex’s head, cradling her.  When Alex opened her eyes Shana smiled, and they made eye contact.

            “Shana?”

            “You’re finally awake.”  Her tone was motherly and serene.  She helped Alex to sitting.  “Are you feeling okay?  It seemed like you were having a nightmare.”

            Alex hugged Shana and felt the familiar warmth.  It was the sunlight that surrounded her, the smell of flowers in spring.  It was everything good Alex knew, and it was there now.  They stood together, and Alex rubbed her eyes.  “I was,” she said, “But I think it’s over now.”

            “Good.”  Shana looked around them, at the field of the flowers, at the trees green with leaves, and the blue sky.  “What do we do now?”

            Alex shrugged, and she took Shana’s head and lead her back toward the forest.  “I guess we go look for Ellen and Abraham and we get out of here.”  They reached the beach and found a long, thin strip of land had appeared in the water.  It extended into the distant horizon, flanked on both sides by the shifting waters.  The girls made eye contact again.  “You ready?”

            “Am I ready?”  Shana released Alex’s grip and sprinted forward, setting foot on the land-bridge out of there before she turned to blow a raspberry.  “Just try and keep up.”

 

: Bridges :

 

            He stumbled out of the darkness, leaving his memories behind him.  Each foot fall stirred the dust where he appeared.  The walls were ancient brick, yellow in color and smoothed by time.  Enormous pillars rose around him, into the shadows above.  Statues of figures unknown to man lined the walls, bearing images of creatures the likes of which he had never seen nor could ever imagine.

            The air was dry and warm and hurt his chest to breath.  The bloody wound upon his chest burned, his chest hair matted against his flesh.  It was scarring already, aided by the energy of the Emotion itself.  It was shallow to begin with looked far worse than it felt.

            The shadows hadn’t done much but slowed him.  They gripped at him and held him, and they whispered doubts into his ears, but he would not fail again.  This was the second time Alex was allowed to live.  A third time could not come to pass.

            He growled and started toward the far wall, where a staircase led up.  From the air he produced a weapon, which was still forming as he began his ascent.

            This time, Goliath would not hold back.